Back Up Again
by c1araoswa1d
Summary: (Tumblr Prompt) Clara is hurt from the radiation in Into the Dalek and she blacks out/ has hallucinations.


The lights in the Tardis had been blue, flashing to purple and the Doctor had been saying something about being surprised they weren't more affected by their ordeal. The time, the biology, the something scientific that Clara wouldn't have understood even if he'd explained it. She heard him laugh, but it'd been muted, fading, and then she was blinking up into his face.

She didn't know if it was terror she was seeing in those old eyes, but there was something different there to everything she'd seen in them in her first few weeks. Maybe she was imagining it, but beyond the regular harshness, there was worry. Worry about her? She smiled weakly and suddenly realized she was lying down. Back pressed into the hard console floor, lights above her frozen in a dim sea green as the time rotor continued to spin.

It made her dizzy.

"Clara," the Doctor stated. He said her name as though he'd said so much and she merely stared back at him, trying to decipher the questions behind that single word. If it'd been the Doctor before him, she might have known automatically, but she wasn't quite sure with this one.

Or maybe it'd been the fall. She knew she'd fallen; was starting to feel the burn of where her body had collided with the ground – her left hip, left shoulder, and the back of her head. His hand was there, fingers massaging at her scalp as he stated her name again. Again, as though she understood.

"What…" she said softly, listening to the buzz of the Sonic going off as he waved it slowly over her. That bit she knew, she thought as she closed her eyes against the small bit of nausea, he was scanning her for injuries. He was trying to assess the damage so he could formulate a plan.

She imagined that's how this Doctor worked. There wasn't time for friendly caresses, or taking her hand, or comforting her with soft smiles and poetic bits of nonsense interspersed with knowledge that always made her feel better. The Doctor released a sigh and she opened her eyes to look at the way he pressed the back of his wrist into his forehead, nose wrinkled in a sort of agony? Confusion? Relief?

"What is it?" Clara managed.

"I knew this was possibility," was all he stated, standing and rushing away from her, turning knobs and slapping at levers before poking at a set of buttons, Sonic pointed back in her direction for a secondary scan as she took a long breath and tried to pick herself up into a sitting position.

"What," Clara groaned, "Was a possibility."

"Question," he spat, "What sort of being believes exposing humans to radiation would posit no ill reaction?" He pointed, "Answer, either an arrogant being, or a stupid being."

Brow wrinkling, Clara retorted drying, "Is this your way of calling me arrogant and stupid?"

The Doctor's motions slowed and he looked to her as she rubbed at her forehead, trying to shake away the odd feeling behind the bone. She looked up just as he sadly replied, "No," and he glanced at the console before lifting his eyes to tell her, "I was talking about myself."

"I've been exposed to radiation," she surmised, "A bad amount," then she asked, "What about you – you'd have been exposed to it too."

The Doctor smiled for just a moment and she closed her eyes as they swung round heavily in the vortex before settling, opening them to find the Doctor rushing towards her to help her stand and tell her on a rise of his angry brow, "Radiation affects me a bit differently than it would affect you – I practically bathed in it as a child whereas you? You wear vests for a simple x-ray."

She managed a laugh as they made it through the doors and into a bright hallway where he immediately set her down in a wheelchair and began muttering in frustration at a nurse. Clara knew it was a nurse and she knew it was a hospital, but it took her a moment to truly understand they were there for her. She giggled and nodded and looked to the Doctor as he and the nurse glanced in her direction.

"Are the butterflies going to heal me here?" She questioned in amusement, watching the blue winged creatures fluttering about.

The Doctor frowned and he began to approach her, asking her lightly, "Clara, do you see butterflies?"

"Yeah," she laughed, feeling her eyelids slumping as her mind began to swim again, " _Yeah_ ," she raised her hand to point, but the butterflies had gone, as had the rest of the world.

"Clara?" Her name is whispered just close enough for her to feel the warmth of breath over her nose and she wrinkles it in response, listening to the beeps of some machine nearby. "Clara, are you awake?"

Opening her eyes, she stared at the ceiling above her and then jumped slightly when the Doctor's face obscured her view of it. She blinked several times, trying to focus on the blue of those eyes and the familiar fear. Fear over her wellbeing. It made her smile for just a moment before he turned and moved away, forcing her to turn her head and follow him.

"Radiation," he told her, "Not so great in your time, but the future can work wonders about it."

"Am I going to grow a second head," she teased.

He snorted, "Clara Oswald, there's just room enough on your shoulders for the one."

"You saying I have a big head?"

Pointing, he turned and then whatever he'd been about to say ended just before his lips moved, as though he'd erased the words away. She smiled and took a long breath, hearing the beeps quicken for a second before she looked back to him and the way he was simply staring back at her.

"You worried about me, Doctor?" she questioned jokingly, but he didn't respond and the silence frightened her enough to still her laughter as she repeated, "Are you worried about me, Doctor?"

His head shook quickly and then he bit his lips together, admitting, "For a moment, perhaps, but you're fine now – good as new."

"You," she sighed, "Worrying about me – didn't know it was possible."

His hands came together tightly in front of him and she could see his jaw clenching. Clara considered him as he took a step towards her and paused, eyes not quite meeting hers before he tilted his head slightly and offered, "When I said before, that I didn't have to care, I meant it."

Licking her lips, she watched the way he fidgeted for a moment and she understood. She'd known he was going to be a challenge; this Doctor wasn't the best with communication. Clara accepted it because she knew she'd unlodged her own foot from her own mouth enough times to see those signs in others and she crossed her hands over her stomach, watching him as he turned away and then turned back again, touching the back of a chair that had been settled at her bedside.

"The carer becomes cared for by the man who doesn't care," Clara whispered.

For a moment he stared at the floor, hands coming away to ball at his sides, and then he glanced up at her and offered her the smallest of smiles before it drifted back into a frown and he breathed, "Something to be said for that, isn't there."

"Yeah," Clara responded with a simple nod. "Yeah, there is."


End file.
